


Passing Brightness

by LeoOtherLands



Series: Transient Probabilities [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because I couldn't resist using that tag, Forgiveness, Gen, Grumpy Snuggles, Itachi is still mind fucked, Love, M/M, Modern Era, Multi, No Smut, Omega Verse, Reunions, Sadness, commission, no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:48:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: Itachi lost himself years ago. But there are pieces left in the wreck, and, sometimes, what we thought was left behind comes back to us.
Relationships: Haku/Momochi Zabuza, Hoshigaki Kisame/Uchiha Itachi, Hoshigaki Shizuma & Hoshigaki Kisame & Uchiha Itachi, Hoshigaki Shizuma & Uchiha Sasuke
Series: Transient Probabilities [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560676
Comments: 18
Kudos: 57
Collections: Dragons Commissions





	Passing Brightness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EternalSurvivor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalSurvivor/gifts).



> For Eternal. Because you asked and deserve it. I never meant to write more, but here it is. I hope it is alright.
> 
> Well I'm buckled up inside  
> It's a miracle that I'm alive  
> I do not think I can survive  
> On bread and wine alone  
> To think that I could have fallen  
> A centimeter to the left  
> Would not be here to see the sunset  
> Or have myself a time
> 
> Remember the sound of the pavement  
> World turned upside down  
> City streets unlined and empty  
> Not a soul around  
> Life goes away in a flash  
> Right before your eyes  
> If I think real hard well I reckon I've had some real good times
> 
> Well why do the hands of time  
> So easily unwind
> 
> Some lessons we learn the hard way  
> Some lessons don't come easy  
> That's the price we have to pay  
> Some lessons we learn the hard way  
> They don't come right off and right easy  
> That's why they say some lessons learned we learn the hard way
> 
> [Some Lessons - Melody Gardot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0r-wxtuaYA)

Brightness. Brightness assaulting my aggravated senses, slipping and slicing passed my closed eyelids, woke me from sleep with a jerk and a little hiss. Rumbling discontent low in my throat, I stiffened, then unwound from the tightly coiled ball I’d been curled in. Squinting, with another hiss on my lips, I noted Alpha above me.

“Itachi?” he called. “What are you doing sleeping out here? I woke up and you were gone.”

Meaningless syllables. I whined in response to Alpha’s use of the word he spoke when he wanted me, but irritation had me pawing at the blankets I’d wrapped around myself and nudging my face into them.

“Itachi.” Alpha’s exhaustion was evident in his scent, but ripe _worry_ was predominant, pulling a snarl out of me. Alpha should never be worried. It meant danger.

At my snarl, the _worry_ scent cut out, to be replaced with _affection_ and _sadness_. “Sorry, Itachi. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just missed you when I realized you weren’t there.” My Alpha stroked a hand down my spine, eliciting a little shiver and another whine from me.

Wanting to remove that _sadness_ scent from him, I raised my head and nuzzled it into his hand. The contact awakened my desire for _protection_ , and I whimpered, shifting to make room for Alpha in the nest I’d made.

“Alright, Itachi.” I didn’t comprehend the words, but Alpha’s actions were reassuring. He climbed into the nest with me and wrapped me in his limbs.

I scented his neck and rested my head in the hollow of his shoulder, trying to take comfort in that, but the restlessness, which had drove me from our bed to begin with, had me stirring and whining before long.

“Itachi?” Alpha questioned, pressing his forehead to mine and looking into my eyes. I could only articulate a low sound of pleading and shake off his hands.

Prowling out of my nest, I wove across the space that comprised our home and pressed myself to the clear, solidness that let me overlook the outside. The green and white, marbled stone hanging from a bit of leather around my wrist clacked against the plane and I mewed out another complaint.

Without, all was black and pinpricks of light, but my instincts were jittering and calling. There was something down there I wanted, _wanted_ with a stinging pain so deep all I could do was be still and let it throb through my every singing nerve. The ache started salty runnels streaming down my face I didn’t bother to fling off.

“I-tachi…”

My Alpha called from behind and I felt him there. He seldom came when I stared out, but he dared it this night. He carefully nuzzled into my neck, to see if I would take the affection, then his arms slowly, tentatively, went up to warp me in a protective embrace when I made no protest.

“What is it, Itachi?” he rumbled low in my ear, cheek laid on the crown of my head. “Sometimes, I just wish… wish I had a way of knowing what you were thinking.”

More _sorrow_ scent swept over me, but it was tinged so heavily with _love_ all I could do was coo a little sound. Oh, how I wanted Alpha. Wanted his reassurance and love. Wanted it like I wanted whatever pulled at me so bewilderingly from below. Crying softly with it, I turned into him and rubbed my face on his chest. A poor show of the affection and desire I felt, but all I had to give.

Alpha showed no dissatisfaction, though. He stroked my back and murmured nonsensical things in my ear for a little, then he led me away. Back toward the nest I’d made, back towards being tangled up with him, while he scented me and grazed his teeth over my glands. All love and gentleness.

It was some, small comfort. Alpha’s possessive assurance I was his and safe was enough to stop my melancholy complaints and let me settle, held close to his chest. But not enough to still the prick of instinct under my skin. I _itched_ with it. Longing for… something. And this prevented me from being lulled to sleep. Kept me alert, so when a knock came on the portion of the wall Alpha opened when he wished us to go out, my head sprang up, nostrils flaring.

“What the bloody hell,” Alpha snapped, both at my sudden movement and the sound. “It’s the middle of the _kami_ damned night! Who the fuck’s here?!”

Unraveling himself from me and my nest, Alpha got up and stocked toward the wall and a second knock. Whimpering, I followed, though I knew he did not like me to do so, uncalled for. I could not help myself. My instincts compelled me and, when Alpha flung open the wall, something in me knew why.

“Sasuke,” Alpha said, _perplexity_ and heightened _aggravation_ scents leaking out of him. “Do you have any idea what time it is? And who the fuck’s this?”

“Kisame-” my littermate began, but my high cry of elation and bubbling coos of delight cut him off.

There was another human in the opening with my littermate. A young one, still more pup than adult. Slender. With Alpha’s gray skin and my black hair. And the smell of him sent a crash of exhilaration through me I couldn’t resist. _Pup!_ some deep, internal part of me demanded. _My pup!_

“Itachi!” Alpha’s voice held _command to heel_ and _surprise_ together, but not even this could slow me. With a whirl of air and an expected, but somewhat unpleasant, tugging inside me, I flickered from my place near the center of the room and into my pup’s arms.

There was a grunt and the force of my appearance pushed my young one out of the opening and into the corridor beyond. If not for my littermate at his side, I would have sent him sprawling on his back with me on top of him, but I didn’t care. I scented at his neck, confirming he was _mine_ , and clutched at the cloth covering he wore, weaving my fingers into it, so he could not pull away.

The reactions around me were divergent. My littermate’s scent remained all unchanged _placidity_ and steady _contentment_. My pup stiffened against me, sucking in his breath, the pheromones coming off him all _uncertainty_ and wild _agitation_. Both responses I hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t understand. But it was Alpha who confused me most. He just stood, _shock_ scent pouring out of him, and one hand on the wall, as if to hold himself up.

“You better have one hell of an explanation for this, Sasuke,” he growled, at last.

“There is none you will like, Kisame,” my littermate said, quietly. He put a hand on my pup’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should come inside.”

“Shit!” Alpha gave vent to this meaningless word, and stepped aside, waving his hand beckoningly.

But I was not in mind to let go of my pup. Cooing repeatedly, I just pressed closer to him.

“Sasuke?” My pup sounded a bit plaintive when he spoke the senseless noise. He did his best to turn his head toward my littermate, in despite of my constant nuzzling.

“He wants you, Shizuma,” my littermate returned, squeezing my pup’s shoulder before releasing him. “It will be best to allow him what he desires. Hold him, and prompt him forward.”

_Shizuma._

The designation buzzed in my mind, humming with a warmth of familiarity so intense it was painful.

_Shizuma._

_My pup._

“Itachi,” he said, as if in response to my thought. “Omega.” This was almost a whisper into my hair. His arms moved hesitantly and oh so carefully, to come around me. His nose buried itself in my hair and he took in my scent. This lasted a short, sweet moment, then my pup shifted, shuffling me forward a step.

With his encouragement, I went, muttering low things in my throat. Once inside, wrapped in my pup’s arms with my littermate beside me, my Alpha slammed the aperture closed and spun to snarl out, “Explain, Sasuke.”

I whined at this. The _shock_ had slipped out of my Alpha, to be replaced with inexplicable _jealousy_ and _anger_. Why? Why was he not pleased to have our pup near? Disturbed, I wiggled in my pup’s arms and peeked out at my Alpha with one eye. Feeling he would be angry with me, I mewed at him.

Instantly, the unpleasant scents Alpha exhibited died away. He ran a hand over his face and called softly, “Come, Itachi.”

Protesting lightly, I hid my face in my pup’s neck again. It hurt me to _not_ go to Alpha but releasing the warm body in my arms wasn’t an option.

“I don’t think that will work, Kisame,” my littermate said, pacing over the floor, putting himself between Alpha and me. “If you want my brother to come, you will have to force him, and I do not think you truly wish for that.”

Alpha sighed. “You know I would never do that, Uchiha. But I might start in on your face if you don’t cough up that explanation you promised.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” my pup said. His voice was light and hardly carried, but it was laced with _threat_. There and gone, like a breath.

“Who-” Alpha began, only to be cut off by my littermate.

“Shizuma is your son, Kisame. Itachi gave birth to him in the Mist shortly before Kabuto’s procedures took his mind. My brother entrusted your pup to me there, and in your homeland, I have raised him ever since.”

“Shit.”

Alpha sank down onto the couch. He covered his face with his hands and growled. Not the usual useless garble of syllables, but a simple growl.

In my hold my pup ran his fingers down my spine. They were trembling. “I wished to meet my parents,” he said, his words only for me and my Alpha. “I wanted to know my omega. And… my alpha.”

“Pregnant.” The utterance was half a sob, but also fierce with repressed wrath. “He was pregnant, and he didn’t abort according to _Akatsuki_ rules.”

“No, he did not.” My littermate spoke with unnatural gentleness, though he spoke to my Alpha, with whom he was usually aggressive. “That is not the kind of man my brother was, Kisame. You, more than anyone, should know that.”

“Of course, I bloody well know that!” This was a roar so full of _rage_ and _challenge_ it made me hiss against my pup’s neck. My fingers curled tighter into the cloth he wore, and the pain started in my left eye, as it did when Alpha called me to hunt. My hiss and the set of my body must have alerted Alpha to my shifting mood. That, or our pup’s attempts to sooth me, his little, shushing sounds and massaging hands. Whatever the case, Alpha’s next words were more, low snarl than roar. “What I want to know, is who got to him, Uchiha? There’s no way Itachi would have given up any pup of his, unless he was forced to, so who found out? It had to have been someone more than that sick fuck Kabuto, or we could have dealt with it on our own.”

The _pain_ in these meaningless sounds had me whimpering and rubbing my face back and forth in the crock of my pup’s neck. Alpha’s pain was the worst thing, the most devastating thing. It made me ache like the scattered shards of memories, which, at times, rose to cut me through. Salty trickles began running from my eyes and I cried into my pup’s skin, my gaze flickering to Alpha and away again.

Shizuma’s arms hugged me close, then, almost reluctantly, loosened. “You want to go,” he murmured. His hands were laid over mine. He pried my unresisting fingers away and turned me gently. “Go,” he encouraged, brushing his cheek into the space between my shoulder blades.

 _Go._ A command I still understood. _Go to Alpha. Comfort Alpha._

With a final whine, I spun, nipped at the gland in my pup’s neck with longing, and dashed across the room to my Alpha, pausing only to nudge my littermate with my forehead along the way. A hurried affection. Alpha needed me, and I wanted him so badly I awkwardly crawled directly into his lap when I reached him. Still weeping aggravating and blinding, liquid drops, I pressed to him in every way I could, and scented along his chest.

“My Itachi.” Alpha’s voice caught as he said it and he hooked one arm around me, while he smudged the tears from my face with the thumb of his other hand.

His affection only made me shiver more with sadness and incomprehension. There was no need for Alpha’s pain. Pup was here, littermate was here, our family unit was safe. Everything was well.

Yet, Alpha did not feel so.

“Who was it, Uchiha?” he asked, voice trembling.

“Lord Danzō Shimura,” my littermate responded stoically.

“Danzō,” Alpha repeated, his arms stiffening around me. “I’ll kill him.”

“You can’t,” Shizuma said easily, his face sedate as his words, as he turned away to pace toward the windows. “I killed him earlier this evening.”

Whatever meaning these words had for Alpha, they made him go limp with _shock_. “What?”

“Did you think I came to the Leaf only to indulge a child’s desire to see his progenitors, _alpha_?” My pup inquired, turning to view my Alpha with his arms folded over his chest. His eyes were the red and black wheels of my pack. “I am the last wielder of the _sharingan_ capable of reproduction; I have my clan to rebuild and their future to secure. I came for revenge and to eliminate a threat.”

“And, with it done, we cannot stay here much longer,” my littermate said softly. “Shortly, Shizuma and I will be leaving the Land of Fire, permanently. It will not take the _Konoha_ police force long to find Danzō, and then ROOT will be mobilized…” He paused. “You are welcome to come with us, Kisame. I did not expect you would want to stay, once you had learned the truth.”

My Alpha chuckled. A dry sound threaded through with both _anger_ and something else I couldn’t identify. Something between _sorrow_ and _pain_. “You’re danm right I don’t want to stay. I stuck it out in this fucking village because I thought it was what Itachi would have wanted. Now you’re telling me the place wrecked him without a care. I’ve got no reason for us to stay. Besides, I don’t think Itachi will want to be separated from his pup again. I couldn’t do that to him.”

Littermate nodded. “Then you should prepare. We don’t have time to linger here.”

“Yeah.” Alpha stroked me, his scent turning mellow and loving and tinged with desire of a kind I didn’t understand. “But first, I have one more question for you, Uchiha. And since my mate seems to have trusted you so much, maybe you can answer it for me.”

“I will do my best,” my littermate said with a placating gesture.

“Why the bloody hell didn’t he tell me he was pregnant?!” The senseless words were on the verge of shaking apart, and I whined, burrowing further into my Alpha’s embrace. “Even if Danzō had found out and was threatening him, why didn’t Itachi give me the chance to protect him?!”

There was no hesitation on my littermate’s part, though the feel of the room was heavy. “I don’t know, Kisame, he never told me. But I think it was because, for once, Itachi wanted to protect you. My brother always felt you had lost your home because of him. He wanted to give you that back. He didn’t want you to have to run your whole life.”

Alpha choked on a sob and pressed his nose into my neck. “Home was always with him; didn’t he know that?!”

“We all make mistakes, Kisame.”

“Yeah,” Alpha repeated, fiercely scrubbing at his eyes. “Too bad it’d also be a mistake to smash your face for never telling me this shit.”

“It _would_ be a mistake,” my pup said, tone carrying _menace_ , which made me whimper and moan.

“Cut that,” Alpha commanded, his hands smoothing circles over my shoulder blades. “It upsets him. Besides, Itachi seems to still be attached to his brother, and I would never do anything to hurt my mate.”

“Anymore than I would ever break a promise to him,” my littermate said. “He made me swear not to tell you, Kisame.”

They all stilled after that, dropping into silence and subtle movements, and Alpha cocked my head up, so he could press our foreheads together and murmur reassuring nonsense things to me. Whatever meaning they held for Alpha, it was clear they were full only of _love_ and they eased me. Allowing me to relax in his arms and coo little, loving things back to him.

When I was calmed, Alpha passed me back to my pup’s hands, and he and my littermate went about our home, picking out several items they placed in cloth slings they wore at their sides. This done, Alpha slung the long claw he called Samehada over his back and said, “Come, Itachi,” holding out his hand to me.

_Come._

A lingering word I still grasped. With my pup beside me and Alpha close by, keeping hold of my hand and mumbling low with my littermate, we left the place Alpha and I lived and went out into the night. We walked for a short way, but soon my littermate put a small, glass and plastic square to his ear, spoke into it, and one of the long, metal and glass conveyances I so enjoyed stopped next to us. I entered happily enough and soon, after a few mild protests, fell into a contented sleep with my head in Alpha’s lap and my pup pressed close to my side.

† † †

We glided with the sway of the vehicle, until some time just before dawn. Then Alpha roused me, eliciting a few halfhearted noises of annoyance from me before I yawned and acquiesced to exiting out the door my littermate held open. We were on a strip of flat stone in a wide-open place and another kind of metal and glass beast idled above us. It was long and sleek and slate gray, and the thrumming roar of it hurt my ears, but I had ridden in such things with Alpha before and, though I did not like how they always made me feel the world had dropped out from under me, I consented to follow my family unit on board.

Once the initial lurch was over, there was only a continual, mellow humming and minute shuddering. It kept me on edge and would not allow me to fully rest, but with my family near, I only grumbled and moped about on furniture, until a second, sickening lurch brought us to land again.

It was raining when we walked off the gray, metal monster. The falling drops were cold and set me shivering, but our arrival was not unwelcomed. Three individuals waited for us. A male alpha called Zabuza, a male beta called Haku, and a female omega called Miru. These three wrapped us in warm cloaks, before hurrying us into another of the smaller vehicles.

I would have been uneasy with, and suspicious of, these unknowns if it hadn’t been clear from their interactions these were my pup and littermate’s family unit, and that meant they were pack. _My_ pack.

Still, I watched the alpha, Zabuza, intently for some while. It’d been clear from the first whiff of my pup’s scent he was omega, just as I was, and I wished to know if the pack’s alpha had claimed him. Or, perhaps claimed the female, Miru. My short scrutiny was enough to assure me he had claimed neither. Though it made no sense, Zabuza seemed to have no interest in anyone but his beta, Haku. Some higher part of my mind said this should not be so, that betas did not _mate_ , had no interest in _mating_ , but over the days that followed, looking on as Zabuza would enfold the beta in his arms from behind, and taking in how Haku would blush and exude clear, shy, _pleasure_ scent, _mate_ was all my instincts would insist.

And if this were not strange enough, my littermate seemed to play alpha to my pup and communal beta to all else without being bonded to any of them. In addition, the female, Miru, appeared to hold the position of dominate omega, though she was not mated to pack alpha, Zabuza. The whole organization of the pack was rag-tag and consisted of few blood ties. All of which confused me and left me with head tilted in consternation.

Yet, they were my pack.

Something confirmed all the more by Alpha. When we first arrived, I wondered if he would challenge Zabuza for right of pack leadership, but Alpha had greeted all three of the new ones with a begrudging kind of surprise and familiarity. As if they’d all been packmates before, Alpha simply fell in with them and neither deferred to, nor challenged Zabuza. An attitude matched by the other alpha, attesting to the fact they were on equal footing.

Though it was all strange, I found I had no grievances with any of it, apart from two things.

It was raining when my new pack met my family unit and brought us to what was to become our home, a large, rambling dwelling in a wide stretch of barren country, and it did not stop raining thereafter. Every day the rain sheeted down and the sun hid its face and I seemed to feel perpetually damp. I missed the sun and the warmth it brought.

But what troubled me most was a deeper and more painful thing. Though I had my Alpha and my pup together at last, neither seemed to take much enjoyment in the other. There was an inexplicable form of distance and aggression simmering between them, which left me melancholy and depressed. It was as though we were still apart, even while we were together.

This state persisted for perhaps a moon before one night found me crying in the bed Alpha and I shared. “Oh, Itachi,” Alpha sighed when my low, whimpered sounds woke him, and his attempts to draw me close and comfort me failed. Wrapping me lightly in one arm he ran his other hand over his face. “What am I supposed to do?”

The questioning, meaning-devoid words held _sadness_ and _longing_ and traces of _hopelessness_ , which made the ache in me worse. There was no reason Alpha should feel this way and I did not know how to comfort him. Didn’t he know everything we needed was right here?

Whining with my inability to do anything or give what was needed, I nudged my head into the center of his chest and twisted it back and forth there for just a few moments. Then I shuddered out from under his touch and slunk dejectedly to the portion of wall I knew would let us out into the passageway, if Alpha wished us to leave. Weeping pitiably, I pressed myself to the wood and let myself cry without care.

Alpha groaned behind me. “Fuck.”

There was the sound of Alpha standing and expelling explosive syllables, as he tripped and stumbled in the dark. Then he was beside me, easing a long drape of fabric over my shoulders.

“Alright, Itachi, alright,” he murmured in my ear. “Just let me dress you.”

His soft touch and words prompted me to allow him what he wanted. And when he had me wrapped up in the material, he reached around me and opened the way out.

With a glad cry, I bounded out and Alpha followed, muttering, behind. Though I was secretly pleased to have him near, I did not slow, rushing past the places in the passage, which smelled of Zabuza and Haku and mating, of Miru, of littermate. Though the scent of the final two was faint in the night. Dominate omega and littermate had left our home several days before as they often did. These occurrences had bothered me at first, but I had learned the two of them would always return.

It was no matter.

In the moment, all I wanted was something else.

The place that smelled of pup.

I whined low in my throat when I paused outside that space, and Alpha sighed behind me. “You want in, don’t you?” Indecision seemed to weigh on him, make him tired. But, with another aggrieved sigh, Alpha stepped up beside me and rapped his fist on the smooth wood.

Several, ever more aggravated pounds later, the wall was jerked open from within and I squealed out a sound of happiness, burrowing my way into my pup’s arms. He was messy, his normally neat, long hair sleep-rumpled and matted to his cheeks and neck in places. The clothes he wore were loose and baggy and warm from being snuggled into his nest, and it was perfect. All I wanted was right there in my hold, and I purred into his neck.

“Omega,” he said, tone off-guard and thick from waking, but not displeased.

“He wouldn’t sleep,” Alpha rumbled from behind.

My pup stroked me and made soft, inviting, grumbling noises in his throat, before raising his eyes to Alpha. “Oh? Would he not?”

“No.” A growl.

Shizuma let me hold him a while, then released me and brushed some hair out of my face. He tried to turn me back to Alpha, but I made loud protest and Alpha groaned.

“I don’t think that’s going to work. He doesn’t want me right now.”

Pup’s eyes were dark and his face inexpressive in the way my littermate’s was. He gaged both me and Alpha for some time before saying, “Then come to bed.”

“What?!” This was half surprised bark.

My pup spun away with a whirl of the coverings he wore and prowled towards his nest. “Come sleep. It is what he wants, isn’t it? And it is what family units do, is it not?”

Alpha did nothing but mutter and snarl, but all the same, I soon found myself in my pup’s nest with him tucked to my stomach and Alpha pressed firmly to my back.

Pleasure rose like a warm wash in my heart and I cooed it into my pup’s neck. All raptured delight, which broke into something more when his full scent filled my senses. Stopping my articulations, I tilted my head from side to side, then buried it in his neck, to gather more scent. After a few minutes, I was practically purring in pleasure. My fingers splayed on his stomach and I nosed into his mussed hair.

Shizuma was silent a while, then he brushed his fingers over the side of my face, touch all light like a breath of wind. “I might have known you’d be the first to see it.”

“See what?” Alpha huffed.

“Nothing,” my pup responded, dragging his fingers down the length of my arm. “Only things omegas know.”

My Alpha made another low sound of disgust, but Shizuma paid him no mind. His hand had gone down to my wrist and paused there, playing with the loop of leather holding the green, marbled stone. “I made this,” he murmured.

“What?”

His eyes flickered over me to Alpha, then back to the stone. “I made this. When I was three, I remember my uncle… Sasuke letting me pick out the stone and helping me to braid the leather. He said it was special, a gift, but then he took it on one of his business excursions.” My pup fell silent, fingering the loop around my wrist. “I’d forgotten about it until now.”

Alpha grunted an uncomfortable noise. “He never let me take it off, after… _your uncle_ put it on him. I tired a few times, but Itachi would only cry, until I put it back on.”

Quiet descended again, heavy with that tenseness between them. Alpha broke it, after a moment. “So, Shizuma,” he rumbled. “The Uchiha name you that?”

My pup seemed to consider his sire, his dark eyes brooding. “Sasuke told me my omega named me in the short time he had with me.”

Alpha’s breath hitched, as if he were trying to hold in a sob. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “Yeah. That sounds like Itachi. He probably had a name picked for you the moment he knew he was going to have a pup.”

Shizuma was placid. So warm but still in my arms. Slowly, he brought his hand up to graze his fingertips over my face, tracing my cheekbones, making me coo. “Is it true… sometimes… he comes back? There are times he regains lucidity?”

“Yeah,” Alpha offered, disheartedly. “But they never last long. Those times… they’re… fleeting.”

“Passing,” my pup murmured, his fingers gliding over my skin, “like life. Like a dream. Like the brightness of the sun in this land.”

His eyes traced me like his fingers, and those dark orbs shifted to red, gathering intensity, as if he were memorizing every millimeter of me. “When I was young, I used to dream of meeting my omega. I would imagine all the things I would say to him. It wasn’t until I began learning _ninjutsu_ that Sasuke told me what became of him.”

A thick pause. “Because of me.”

“That’s a load of shit.” The words were harsh, but there was no scent of _anger_ or _challenge_ from Alpha.

“Pardon?” This was but a soft purr.

“What happened to Itachi wasn’t because of you. It was Danzō’s doing. Itachi and I, we might have got out of it if it weren’t for him.”

“He is dead.”

“Yeah. Thanks to you.”

“Sleep,” my pup instructed, ending this line of conversation. “All of it is done now.”

Another slip into silence. My pup reached to trail his fingers through my hair. My Alpha moved to do the same, unthinkingly, and their hands collided. Shizuma attempted to pull back, but Alpha caught his hand, interlocking their fingers.

“I’m pissed because I never had the chance to know you.”

For the first time my pup’s calm surety seemed to split open. His fingers trembled in my Alpha’s hold, where their hands were joined over my hair. He radiated _uncertainty_ and _trepidation_ , and his voice was small and shaken when he spoke. “You… have the chance now.”

“Yeah.” Alpha’s tone was low, choked with a repressed _something_ , and his fingers tightened on Shizuma’s.

My pup’s uncertainty deepened. A shudder ran up his spine, and the word he spoke was almost a whine. “A-alpha?”

“Pup,” my Alpha responded.

I cooed a sound, shifting a bit between them. _Happy._ There was some part of me which was happy and sensed a change within the two of them. That part of me said whatever distance had separated my family was now crossed.

Time proved it.

Days slipped into another moon, and my pup and alpha tentatively began bonding. They would speak their nonsensical sounds together for long periods of time, and nights found we three nesting together more often than not. It eased me. My family unit strengthened and assimilated into the greater pack, until it felt this was how it had always been.

I still missed the sun, and at times, longed for the home Alpha and I had left behind, but with my pack was where I wanted to be. With them. Going about the simple motions of existence. Laying on the porch, listening to the rain play on the wooden roof, while pup and Alpha spoke. Snuggling littermate on the couches in the large room of our dwelling. Following dominate omega, Miru, through the rooms, watching her care for pack with pride and grace. Being gradually allowed near Haku and Zabuza, as the beta became accustomed to me and began to treat me with the same kind of gentle incredulity with which most betas viewed pups. As if they didn’t quite know what to do with them but found them endearing all the same.

All of these things left me content. Told me all was well. Though, perhaps, nothing was so pleasing as watching pup and Alpha play.

They did so often. The two of them going out into the yard and practicing the rhythms and paces of hunting together. Usually this occurred in the rain, as rain was ever present, but as much as they could, my family unit played in the few moments of sun there were. I often wished to join them but understood I could not. I was too strong to play with them. I could injure them, merely attempting to find amusement. So, I would watch from the side with pride in my heart, kept company by Zabuza and Haku or my littermate, when he and Miru were present.

I preferred my littermate’s presence but did not mind the other two. The alpha would mostly ignore me, but Haku would cuddle me, once saying to Zabuza, “He needs a beta, let me be nice to him.”

“You’re _my_ beta,” Zabuza had responded in a smooth growl, _amusement_ plain in the smell of him.

Haku flushed, skin pink and pretty, heartrate soaring against my chest, scent turning to shy _anticipation_. “Yes. I am. Always yours, Zabuza.”

I understood little of it but was content all the same. My pack was a disorderly helter-skelter, but it was mine and I loved it.

Once, I woke between my pup and Alpha in the early morning to see sun shinning on us. We were bathed in it and it made me purr, waking the other two. They wished to lounge, but I wanted out in the sun, and they would not refuse me. They roused my littermate and we went out into the day.

Alpha and pup were with me a time, while I stood scenting the air with my face raised to the sun, but they began to play after a little, leaving me with my littermate. He stood near me and I watched those I loved in a land I knew was not part of _Konoha_ , and felt tears crawl down my face. Pain, akin to joy and deepest sorrow, blended in my heart and I let myself fall into my brother, simply sagging against him. He looked at me and enfolded me softly in his single-armed embrace.

“Itachi?”

“Where are we, Sasuke?” I asked, unable to keep the roughness of tears and disuse from my voice.

My brother’s eyes mellowed, brightening with prism-bright, unshed droplets. “Safe,” was his only response.

All I could do was trace my husband and my son, as they sparred. Kisame wielding Samehada and Shizuma holding him off with impossible strength. A sight never expected. Heartbreaking and beautiful. “This isn’t how I’d have it.” It was almost a sob.

Sasuke did not offer comfort. He never did. “It wasn’t my choice any longer. It was theirs.”

“Are they happy?”

“As happy as they can be.”

I allowed myself to lean heavier on my brother, tilting my head back, so the sun blurred my vision in the spectrum of my tears. “I love you, Sasuke.” There was nothing better I could say, nothing else I so wanted to express, while I had the chance. “I will always love you.”

“I love you, too, Itachi.”

The words were a spur. I breathed one breath of my brother’s scent, in the moment of clarity I had, looked in his eyes, and moved away, and he let me go. Like a thing of grace and steel, I covered the distance between myself and my two most precious people. A single move and I had Samehada in my hand. I pushed Kisame back several paces and met Shizuma’s sword with my husband’s. All before they comprehended I was there.

Then they were struck still, and I shoved the sword of the Mist into the dirt and waited. My husband came to me first.

Trembling.

“Itachi?”

I opened my arms to him. “Kisame.”

He wrapped me in his embrace, weeping like a child, and I twisted to look back at my son and reach for him with one hand. “Shizuma.”

My pup approached slow, uncertain. Then pressed into the hug, his own light tears wetting me. It was almost what I wanted. A quick trick and I toppled the three of us into the grass under the sun. My pup in my arms, the swelling curve of his stomach pressing into mine, and my mate holding us both to his chest.

A faint breeze brought the scent of earth and new growth. Life. And I shut my eyes, so all I could see was the transient brightness of the sun on my eyelids. “I love you both. I love you so much.”

It was important I say it. Say that and nothing more. There was no point in asking for the forgiveness it was clear they already offered me. I had sinned and paid the price. I had no alibi and no cure for what I had become. It was done now. Just like my attempt to extend a convergent lie. In what time I had, I would not dwell on guilt. Not linger with regret. These painful instances of life were too few. Like passing brightness. Like moments, which would never come again. And all that mattered was we were safe. Somewhere.

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> In this farewell  
> There's no blood, there's no alibi  
> 'Cause I've drawn regret  
> From the truth of a thousand lies
> 
> Put to rest what you thought of me  
> While I clean this slate  
> With the hands of uncertainty
> 
> For what I've done  
> I start again  
> And whatever pain may come  
> Today this ends  
> I'm forgiving what I've done
> 
> So let mercy come and wipe away what I've done  
> I'll face myself to cross out what I've become  
> Erase myself  
> And let go of what I've done
> 
> [What I've Done - Linkin Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sgycukafqQ)
> 
> This salty ball of angst and glitter is an original fiction author and fan fiction writer, who literally lives for comments and reader interaction. Even if this is nothing but inarticulate vowel screams, lol. He exist on a flotilla of social media, separated into a wide array writery things.
> 
> If you are crazy enough to want to see what I'm writing on any given day, and maybe try tempting me into writing something specific, feel free to join me in my personal writing Discord [Midway](https://discord.gg/jsQw96p), or friend me on Discord at LeoOtherland#7066 if you would rather chat one on one.
> 
> On Facebook I can be located on my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/) for all things original fiction, or in the [AO3 Armada group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951) for all things fan fiction.
> 
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RoseOfOtherLand) or [Tumbler](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/leootherlands) I primarily run with the fan fiction crowd and I seldom post and/or tweet anything, but if you want to drop me a line, I am always up for a chat.


End file.
